The removal of ticks and like parasites from the skin of man and animals should be done with care. Ticks have long been a problem and recently have become more so with the advent of Lyme Disease. Ticks embed their heads into the host's skin and remain attached while feeding on the host's blood. If one manually attempts to pull the tick off, the ticks head or mouth parts may remain embedded in the skin. This may result in infection besides irritation. Also if the tick's body is squeezed in the process of removing it, it may rupture or regurgitate which could cause transfer of disease as well as infection of the wound. As noted below there have been many devices proposed for the removal of ticks, but most are not satisfactory for one reason or another: cost, complexity, lack of effectiveness, or failure to remove the ticks head.
The present invention is a simple, quite inexpensive, manually operated tool for removing ticks. It is slid along the host's skin underneath the tick's body and used to pull the tick free without the need for the fingers to touch the tick's body.